North Korea Behind WannaCry Ransomware

The National Security Agency believes that the North Korean government is responsible for the WannaCry chaos.

(CCM) — The WannaCry ransomware that caused havoc around the world in May was likely the work of the North Korean government, according to a Washington Postreport. If confirmed, this suggests that rather than being a money-making tool for criminals, the purpose of the malware was to cause damage to the economies and services of other countries while raising funds for North Korea.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has analyzed the tactics, techniques, and targets of the WannaCry incident and assessed with "moderate confidence" that hackers suspected of being "sponsored" by North Korea's spy agency were behind two versions of WannaCry, according to the report.

If one of the purposes of WannaCry was to generate cash for North Korea's government, the tactic seems to have failed because of none of the $140,000 in Bitcoin raised in ransoms has been cashed in, according to the report. This may be because a weakness in WannaCry means that any transactions involving the Bitcoins it generated will be easy to track.